To Eustace D. Conway
14 August 1876 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS facsimile: CU-MARK, UCCL 01358)
(SUPERSEDED)

Elmira, N. Y., Aug 14.

My Dear Mr. Conway:

I am very much obliged for your letter, & the copy of Mr. Taylor’s1. I agree with Mr. Taylor, that the story as it stands is doubtless not dramatizable; but by turning & twisting some othe of the incidents, discarding others & adding new ones, that sort of difficulty is overcome by these ingenious dramatists. But I haven’t the head to do it. I meant to put in a ridiculous spelling-scene, historical & arithmetical classes, &c (country school fashion,) but forgot it—but I’d have it in the [play. I] hope Mr. Byron can & will do the play. I have written your father lately about him—he was my first choice any way, but he did not answer the letter I long ago wrote him on the subject.2 There’s a little prodigy of an actress here, too—Matilda Heron’s young daughter.3 I would enjoy seeing this girl & the young girl you speak of playing Tom & Huck. It would be a strong team.

Lucky father, you’ve got, who can take his family 4 & skip over to Paris with less trouble than we can go to New York. I am obliged to envy him.

My books have arrived at last; very handsome & attractive, they are.5 ’Twas a great pity you didn’t cut out that newspaper notice & enclose it. I receive a great many newspapers now (at Hartford) but left no orders to have them sent here, for I don’t want to be seduced by newspapers when I ought be at work. I shall write home & have the servants keep all the papers hereafter & also save what are now on hand.6

Please tell your father I am not going to allow him to do the thousand p splendid things he is doing in behalf of this book & then worry over those electrotype pictures besides. He must do the thing that is the least trouble to him, & charge the damage to me. Use them—destroy them—or return them—whichever is the least trouble. I sent the item of the price they would cost (the original document, not a copy, I think) & so I supposed Chatto was satisfied with the figure, when the electros were ordered; but I can see by your father’s last letter that my item was never received & that the pictures were ordered on the risk that they would cost but little more here than they would in England. 7 —which is probably the case. I’d never pay Bliss till he shows me the electrotypers bill, if it falls to my lot to take the pictures on my shoulders.

Well, mistakes are bound to occur—folks can’t help them. With my best regards to all the Pembroke Garden household (though it seems odd that one should live in two 2 Pembroke Gardens, which is mere reckless extravagance,) I am

Yrs Sincerely

Samℓ. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 The letters from Conway and Tom Taylor do not survive.

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2 See 24 July 76 to Moncure Conway.

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3 Two weeks short of her thirteenth birthday, Hélène Stoepel (1863–1937), daughter of famed actress Matilda Heron (1830-1877) and German-born composer and musician Robert Stoepel (1821–87), had been acting since 1874, under the stage name Bijou Heron. That year she played Oliver Twist and in 1875 she appeared as Romeo, both at Augustin Daly’s Fifth Avenue Theatre. While still twelve she reportedly became the youngest actress to play Juliet (New York Times: “An Old Musician Dead,” 2 Oct 87, 16; “Mrs. Henry Miller, Producer’s Mother,” 20 Mar 1937, 19; Daly 1917, 160, 187).

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4 See 6 and 7 Jan 76 to PAM, n. 3.

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5 Copies of the English edition of Tom Sawyer.

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6 This letter is not known to survive.

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7 Moncure Conway’s most recent letter does not survive (see 1 Aug 76 to Conway, n. 1).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

MS facsimile, CU-MARK.

Previous publication: MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:A typed transcript in CU-MARK indicates that the MS was at one time in the Justin Turner Collection.

Emendations and textual notes:

play. I • play.—|I